Our world is becoming more complex every day, and so problem solving often requires people to form teams and work remotely. To support this a variety of teleconferencing and telepresence technologies have been developed. However, most of them have involved some variation of traditional video conferencing with known limitations. In this workshop we will focus on how Augmented Reality (AR) and Mediated Reality (MR) technology can be used to enhance the remote collaboration experience and developed radically new types of collaborative experiences.

AR and MR systems allow experts to virtually be at any place in the world without traveling. In AR, virtual data is overlaid on top of physical reality, allowing the flexibility of virtual reality to be used while being grounded in physical reality. In contrast, MR adds to, subtracts information from, or otherwise manipulates the user’s perception of reality. In combination, AR and MR technologies can be used to merge the shared perceived realities of different users as well as enriching their own individual experience.

This workshop addresses the above vision. The goal is to bring together researchers who are interested in collaboration in merging realities. The participants will provide a snapshot of current research on using AR and MR for collaboration as well as setting up a common research agenda for work going forward. This, in turn, will help build a larger research community. Read more on Call: IEEE ISMAR 2013 Workshop on Collaboration in Merging Realities (CiMeR)…

So here’s the deal. Personal computer sales are going down the toilet. According to IDC, total sales are down 14 percent for the first quarter of this year compared to last year.

There were more than 88 million computers sold in the first quarter of last year, and just over 76 million this year. That’s twice as steep a drop as IDC originally projected, and the biggest drop ever, despite an improving economy, a new operating system and some feature improvements.

IDC blames the drop on two factors – the rise of mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones, and the abysmal failure that is Windows 8.

Physiological data in its different dimensions, either bioelectrical, biomechanical, biochemical or biophysical, and collected through specialized biomedical devices, video and image capture or other sources, is opening new boundaries in the field of human-computer interaction into what can be defined as Physiological Computing. PhyCS is the annual meeting of the physiological interaction and computing community, and serves as the main international forum for engineers, computer scientists and health professionals, interested in outstanding research and development that bridges the gap between physiological data handling and human-computer interaction. Read more on Call: International Conference on Physiological Computing Systems – PhyCS 2014…

Building on the success of the previous two conferences, the Symposium on Communicating Complex Information (SCCI) explores the relationships between and within the contexts that affect complex information, information design, information architecture, user experience, and usability. It seeks to examine how design choices influence people’s behavior when interacting with complex information, and how the knowledge of situation contexts improves the design of complex information systems. The intention of SCCI is to foster an integrated approach to the design of complex information by bringing together members of the various research and practitioner communities.

Will there ever come a day when students and teachers interact in a virtual world? Avaya is betting on it. The Santa Clara (Calif.) company creates a virtual space, similar to Second Life, that allows people to interact as they would in the real world. The MIT Sloan School of Management has already held one executive education course using the technology, and a second is planned for October. Avaya says it’s in talks with other business schools to use the technology but would not release details.

Sloan hosted its Big Data 4Dx executive education program on April 2-3, both on the Avaya platform and in-person on the Cambridge campus. The virtual event featured the same faculty, content, discussions, and exercises and was conducted simultaneously with the on-campus program. Read more on A serious Second Life for business schools…

The 17th ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW 2014) will be held February 15-19 in Baltimore, Maryland, USA.

CSCW is the premier venue for presenting research in the design and use of technologies that affect groups, organizations, communities, and networks. Bringing together top researchers and practitioners from academia and industry in the area of social computing, CSCW encompasses both the technical and social challenges encountered when supporting collaboration.

CSCW 2014 will build on this strong history with venues including Papers, Workshops, Panels, Interactive Posters, Videos, Demonstrations, and a Doctoral Colloquium. The submission date for Papers is May 31, 2013.

We invite submissions that detail existing practices, inform the design or deployment of systems, or introduce novel systems, interaction techniques, or algorithms. The scope of CSCW includes, but is not limited to, social computing and social media, crowdsourcing, technologically-enabled or enhanced communication, CSCL and related educational technologies (e.g., MOOCs), multi-user input technologies (e.g., surface computing), collaboration, information sharing, and coordination. It includes socio-technical activities at work, in the home, in education, in healthcare, in the arts, for socializing, and for entertainment. New results or new ways of thinking about, studying, or supporting shared activities can be in these and related areas: Read more on Call: Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW) 2014…

Hallstatt, Austria, is in China. So is the Eiffel Tower, the Taj Mahal, Christ the Redeemer and a soon-to-be-completed Manhattan. There are others, too, and it’s all part of this weird (at least to us Westerners, or this one Westerner who is writing this) proliferation of what are being called “copy towns.” They’re villages and buildings and cities in China that are being constructed as replicas of non-Chinese places from around the world — and people are living in them. Hallstatt, China, has an artificial lake, and they imported doves to make it more Hallstatt-like.

Much of the awareness of this comes from artists Sebastian Acker and Phil Thompson, who traveled to China and pretty thoroughly documented the “copy towns.” Now they’re hoping to travel to all of the areas that have been copied in hopes of doing some parallel research to give themselves — and all of us — a better idea of what the heck is going on here. They’re holding an Indiegogo campaign to help fund the trip and their research. I spoke to Thompson yesterday via email to try to get a sense of what these replica cities are all about.

Where did you first come across the Chinese copy towns?

We first came across the towns in an article on Spiegel Online. It was about the replica of Hallstatt being built in the Guangdong Province. We had both been doing individual research into contemporary reproductions in design and art, and so we both found the article fascinating. Once we did a bit more research we discovered that there were lots of these types of towns all over China, covering architectural styles from all over the world.

So, I don’t understand these things. Everything is more connected today, and everything we do is copying something else in some way, but these towns and buildings are so weird! Are they just a straight money grab? Or is there some deeper, I don’t know, more cultural desire at play?